Historically, the content of entertainment media has been distributed using electronic transmission systems, such as telegraph, radio, or television. The content of these transmissions are ephemeral, and are primarily intended for synchronous contemporaneous consumption by a consumer. More recently, such content has been embodied and distributed in a physical form, such as paper, vinyl, film, magnetic tape or polycarbonate discs. For example, music has been distributed using various forms of vinyl records, compact discs, magnetic tapes and DVDs. Television and movies have been distributed using various magnetic tape and DVD formats. By definition, these physical media needed to be inexpensive, safe, reasonably durable, capable of sustaining multiple uses, and to occupy the smallest physical volume possible for the purposes of shipping and storage.
The idea of using a physical medium that was reusable for the purpose of temporarily containing the media content for the “last mile” between the retail distribution point and consumer premises has previously not been economically viable. Such prior physical media provided no advantages of scale, no cost-effective storage at the customer's location or other factors that would make such a scheme viable. Instead, media transmission and storage systems developed around technologies that were incremental improvements on existing publishing models, such as books, piano rolls, and still photographs.
In each of the prior art media, the method and speed of replication, such as by printing press, record stampers and compact disc presses, drove the economy of scale which allowed the physical medium or container to become no more than a minor contribution to the final cost of goods, the price the customer was required to pay to enjoy the works performed, and to the cost of re-experiencing them “on demand” over a reasonably lengthy period of time.
Another approach to providing media content by providing reusable (that is, erasable) media containers such as erasable compact discs, DVDs or tape that would be filled with content on demand of a consumer has also proven unwieldy. The labor-intensive quality control required to reliably reuse erasable material was never justifiable. Providing such content is very unlike other analogous situations such as in the milk or soda delivery business, where the content is an easily standardized commodity and container cost is significant compared to the intrinsic value of the contents.
More recent media distribution systems have attempted to leverage the installed base of capital-intensive infrastructure. For example, home taping of audio content was an esoteric hobby practiced only by audiophiles with expensive open reel tape recorders until the Norelco/Philips compact cassette became inexpensive, ubiquitous, and evolved in stability and fidelity to the point that it became physically and economically practical to record music in pre-packaged format and distribute it to consumers.
Once inexpensive recording equipment and tape cassettes became available, consumer playback equipment, such as combination radio-cassette decks, made it practical to create mixed tapes for oneself and friends and to extend that customized listing experience to the home and the inside of a car moving down a highway. It is notable that until such radio-cassette players were available for the car, the only vehicle that was equipped by the manufacturer to provide entertainment other than spoken news and music through a car's radio was the Edsel by Ford Motor Company, which was available with an optional 45 rpm record changer shock mounted in the trunk.
Similarly, machines capable of recording television broadcasts soon assumed a cassette cartridge form and were mass marketed (originally ostensibly for time shifting purposes) and brought that capability into the average household. The resulting unanticipated re-purposing of the machines as a non-broadcast alternative distribution channel almost completely ignored the reusable capability of the physical media involved.
In each of the above mentioned examples, the common denominator that dictated a medium's success in the marketplace was the convenience, ease of use, and simplicity of operation that allowed a customer with no technical skills to enjoy the benefits of what had previously been a complex, sophisticated, and technically demanding mechanical challenge.
The advent of the Internet opened a new channel for distribution of media content. However, in its early days, most consumers were only able to connect to the Internet at relatively slow connection speeds. For example, even when dial-up connections to the Internet sported speeds of 56 kilobits per second, a significant improvement over early connection speeds, the only media that lent themselves to distribution electronically were text documents, low-resolution still images, and symbolic representations of real-time performances, including musical notation, midi files, and maps.
Recent improvements in technology provided inexpensive high speed broadband Internet connections to consumers and the development of internationally accepted standards for sub-band coding and compression of audio, such as, for example, Musicam and MP3, continuous tone still images, such as Group 3 fax and JPEG, and video, such as QuickTime, Real video, Windows media player, and the various MPEG formats, forever changed the economics of mass media distribution. The industry and technology continue to raise the bar, with high definition television, digital audio, portable media players, media playback capabilities on cell phones and laptop computers now being widely available at affordable prices. However, this new technology comes with a price, that is, the newer content requires vastly more bandwidth for transmission to consumers.
At present, a chasm has developed in the supply and demand systems that satisfy consumer needs for media distribution. People's expectations in terms of the availability of media on demand have been raised by their experience online using mechanisms like YouTube, iTunes and various search engines. However, only the highest speed optical fiber based broadband Internet access can reliably provide the same resolution of video and audio currently delivered by traditional disposable physical media, including CD's, DVDs, and Blu-Ray™ high definition DVDs. Although these physical formats are small enough to be transported from location to location, and even be enjoyed in a moving vehicle, the storage density, navigational speed, and lack of indexing by content leave much to be desired.
This problem of providing entertainment content has also been addressed previously by traditional brick and mortar institutions, such as Blockbuster. This approach, while successful for a time, is also experiencing problems as consumers become more conditioned to ease of selection available from on-line sources of content. For example, to rent or buy a DVD for viewing, a consumer typically goes to a specialized store having a large selection of DVDs to choose from. The consumer must then physically browse through the various titles until he or she finds one or more of interest, then stand in line to rent the material. The DVD must be returned to the store after a period of time to prevent incurrence of additional fees.
As early as the 1980s, systems were proposed to accommodate this problem and simultaneously increase the available breadth and depth of back catalog titles and new releases available to be distributed to a consumer using some form of “manufacture on demand” distribution in a user-friendly and convenient “kiosk” form factor. Such kiosks were designed to be initially located within traditional content resellers, such as, for example, record stores and videotape rental businesses, but the kiosk systems all suffered from a common problem, specifically, the replication speed required to produce a recording that could be carried away by a buyer was simply to slow to allow for timely and convenient purchase and delivery of the product. The time required to copy a selection, such as a music or film performance from an encrypted master disk, such as the customized twelve inch laserdisc jukebox system manufactured by Personics, or a customized cassette or CD was four to twelve minutes, a period of time that exceeded most buyers' patience, no matter how motivated the buyer was.
As broadband technology has progressed, consumers have come to expect shorter and shorter content delivery times as broadband connections have become increasingly faster. The rapid download speeds available for most content, such as textural and static graphical content, typically present on the World Wide Web, however, have conditioned consumers to expect downloads in real time, that is, the material is delivered to the consumer within seconds of its having been ordered by a mouse click or key stroke.
Customers are no longer satisfied with grainy, postage stamp sized video playback on their computers, televisions and other playback devices. High definition digital images have taken hold of the marketplace, now that high definition video and film content is widely available via over-the air-broadcast, satellite and optical media.
For the above reasons, consumers seem willing to accept services, such as Netflix, which allows movies to be ordered on line and then delivered by mail or the Redbox® vending machine scenario which requires significant maintenance and manual restocking. Use of such services however, requires planning and does not provide the consumer with a spontaneous real-time satisfactory experience.
The high speeds currently available through the Internet in some parts of the country allows consumers to use Internet streaming services from Netflix®, Blockbuster® and other; however, use of these services requires the consumer to be connected full-time to the Internet while streaming content. Times have once again changed, and today's consumers want convenience, quality, breadth of choice, price, compatibility, and portability. This desire dictates that the consumer be able to use their digital content in an unconnected environment; that is, having their digital content resident on a memory device or the rendering device itself.
What has been needed, and heretofore unavailable, is a system where a buyer can rapidly and conveniently search through a database of content to select content to purchase or lease that is then delivered to the consumer in a short, convenient time period of at most minutes, instead of hours. Such a system would include aspects designed to protect content owner's digital rights, and allow for playback on a variety of platforms. Additionally, depending on the whether the content is rented or purchased, the system could include a feature that would allow the consumer to easily add to the rental period or which would block the content from being played after the rental period has expired. The present invention addresses these, and other needs.